[TheForge] Re: reducing fuel costs by improving forge efficiency.

[Mike Spencer]

Ralph wrote:

> The best option would be if you could fasten the blanket in a flat
> lid somehow to stay up and not fall in.  I wonder how stainless
> bolts and washers would hold up to the intense heat of the center of
> the ceiling panel.

I haven't had the experience with gas forges and furnaces that most of
the contributors to this thread have had but...

How about fastening blanket in place with ties of nichrome wire -- the
stuff you see as heating elements in old hot-plates?  It's very
soft and flexible  when new and doesn't oxidize away very rapidly even
at a high heat.  Seems to me that it's used in electric ceramic kilns
as well, although not for stoneware temps.

It does become somewhat brittle after repeated heating but not just plain
crumbly.

So: flat lid has a bunch of ceramic widgets (hi-temp kiln stilts of
some kind?) attached with small stainless bolts.  Then the blanket is
"quilted" over that with individual ties of nichrome wire.  Not a big
job to snip the wires and re-attach with new ties when you note that
one or two ties have failed.

Just as if I knew what I was talking about. :-)

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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